


Macrosis

by vinnie2757



Series: Superbia Drabbles [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, M/M, karkat has a hard life dot docx, superbia au, teenage superheroes being teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-17
Packaged: 2017-12-26 21:09:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinnie2757/pseuds/vinnie2757
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are Karkat Vantas and you cannot touch lest you kill.</p>
<p>You are John Egbert, and you do not realise this.</p>
<p>[Superbia drabbles ported from tumblr.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dim Mak

**Author's Note:**

> Title is the medical term for an increased length of time; i.e. waiting forever.
> 
> The AU is Superbia, a superpower AU, and you can find out about powers and the school over at http://superbiastuck.tumblr.com

(You can’t touch him, not like that. Not the way you think you might like to.)

You stare up at the ceiling in your dormitory, trying not to throw yourself from your bed, pillow in hand to suffocate your best friend in his sleep. Would it be possible, you wonder, to get away with murder?  Could you kill him and not have it trace back to you? The snoring is very obnoxious, but the sleepy honks are even worse.

Maybe you could kill yourself and save everyone else the bother.

Because you know, pulling your pillow up about an ear to try and down the sounds of everyone else breathing out, that you will have to die. If you don’t kill yourself, someone else will have to.

You do this a lot, lie in bed like some nocturnal beast chained to the rails. It would be peaceful, if Gamzee didn’t fucking snore. For once in their miserable existences, everyone’s not running their mouths, and are lost to their dreams, safe in their bubbles. Sort of, anyway, because there’s probably someone with that power lurking in the shadows.

(‘Stick your tongue down his throat,’ you can hear Dave say. ‘Saves everyone else the trouble of killing him.’

The sad thing is; you probably would, if it came down to it. It’s a _genetic_ thing, buried deep under layers of psychological faults and imaginative curses. The need to _save_ people is ingrained in your skin, under it, carved into your bones and staining the marrow with the blood of all those you couldn’t save, all those you killed.

And still you can’t touch him.)

You wonder if maybe you are keeping a vigil; if you are awake, you are keeping everyone else safe. Safe from you, and safe from any dangers that might present themselves. You’re learning; this is a school, that’s what they do. They teach, and you absorb it all, take everything they say and run with it. Like everybody else, like everyone who has been found and herded up and taught to understand, you are beginning to work it out. Now, you can sort of almost maybe control your power. If you can just _keep your distance_ , then you can keep people safe.

There will never be a day where it isn’t a problem. It is, quite literally, in your blood, and even you have been poisoned by it. The poison runs so thick, and so fast that there is nothing you can do to stop it, to find even one drop of blood or spit or sweat that isn’t infected, that doesn’t become a death sentence to any who touch it.

(Once, back when Dave first learnt about it, tagging about after that Harley chick, he’d told you about a film he watched once. He’d been lurking, like Dave was fond of doing, whilst Harley ate her lunch with you. You’d never spoken to Dave before, and he hadn’t seemed to know you existed, which had suited you fine, because Harley likes to complain about him, and you didn’t have a very good impression of him.

But he’d plopped himself down in the seat on Harley’s other side, and he asked what your power was.

When you told him, he said, ‘oh, like the chick from the X-Men.’

You had no idea what that was, and told him so. Harley hadn’t known either, and Dave went off into a rambling explanation that made you both pull faces at each other before he finally said there was a chick that absorbed people’s powers through touch, and one time she was macking on her boyfriend and accidentally killed him.

You vow never to touch him after that, glancing across the hall to where he’s doing something ridiculous with a banana in an attempt to make the resident ice queen smile. She does, and you sigh a little. You don’t stand a chance compared to her.)

In the morning, after turfing Gamzee out of bed and getting breakfast, you head to class. You aren’t really in the mood for it. But of course you aren’t, because why should you be? He’s there, slouched in his seat like he’s not quite awake yet. Probably not, you think, and try to slink past him to go to your seat at the back of the room. Thank God for alphabetisation, you think, but he notices. Of course he notices.

(Sometimes, you think he might even be looking _deliberately_. That he might even _care._ )

‘Karkat!’

‘What.’

John grins, hair getting in his eyes and he doesn’t seem to notice. Your own isn’t much better.

‘Just wanted to say hey! We haven’t spoken for a while.’

‘I know,’ you say. _There’s a reason for that_ , you think.

‘I miss talking to you.’

He’s frowning at you – no, no, not frowning. _Pouting_. The little shit is pouting at you as though you took away his favourite toy, or the cake his dad sent him.

God, you hate him.

Instead of replying, you use the arrival of the teacher as a cover and retreat to your desk. You miss the lesson plan, too busy cleaning up a nosebleed. Dave gives you a look, and you nearly get blood in your mouth for the face you pull back.

(You are Karkat Vantas and you are beginning to think this is all a waste of time.)


	2. Blogging

He infuriates you. Every little thing he does drives you insane. If you could, you think you’d shove him against the wall, pry his mouth open with your tongue and shut him the _fuck_ up. You’d stop him dead just for a few minutes, leave him in a daze. God, if only you could. You’d kiss him silly, make him dizzy for the lack of air in his lungs.

Ha! Him, breathless!

You wish he would notice you enough that you could make it possible.

But no, the boy wonder has eyes on everyone except for you. You don’t know what you have to do to make him realise that hello, hi, you are right here and willing to try and do a thing. Anything at all, you’re willing to try. You’re even willing to _hold hands_ , or even just sit by his side as more than a friend.

Nonsense. Utter fucking lunacy. Why would he notice you, short and ginger and with a stupid fucking overbite that makes you look like your jaw is limp for how weak it is? Why would he give you the time of day when that suave motherfucker could have any woman or man he damn well chose?

Well, no, he couldn’t, there are some people who wouldn’t go near him if you paid their tuition fees and let them keep the change. But there are people out there who would happily accept his offer for a date and Rose Lalonde is one of them.

Oh, you hate her and her almond eyes and her perfect blonde bob. You hate her and her perfect figure, her poise and sophistication and her flawless make-up. You hate that she is a flawless bitch of neatly pressed skirt and tailored blouse. You hate that she has John around her little finger five times over and seems content to let him chase his own wind-trail. You hate the look she gives you when she catches you watching her, that slight curve to her lip, the under-the-eyelashes gaze she rakes you and your too-long trousers and ill-fitting blazer with.

Fuck, you hate that John likes her. Maybe even loves her; God knows he sighs about her enough.

Sometimes, Jade tries to help, tries to make you _talk_ about your feelings.

No, you tell her. No, that’s why I have a blog.

The blog, of course, does not help in the least, but you pretend it does. Anonymous people on the internet tell you to “go for it” and to “get the D.” You tell them that funnily enough, that doesn’t actually help you any, because the “D” is unattainable. You cannot have the D and they say that is the saddest thing they have ever heard.

Your blog does not last long.

Once, you try to, you know. Do the thing. You know. With your dick. You do it in the shower, just to be safe, water washing poison away before it can seep through your skin, into the whorls of your fingertips and into your pores.

“Karkat Vantas,” your obituary will read, “was a grade-A pillock and died masturbating in the shower.”

No, you think, and turn the dial to make the water cold as ice, cold as Rose’s smile, as the violet of her eyes framed in the blackest kohl, no, it’s best not to risk it.

You dream about him, about all the things that can never be, about digging your fingers into his neck and shoulder and arms, pock-marking his skin with bitten-down nails and using him as an anchor, the last contact with the earthly realm. You dream of how good it would be, of letting go and letting him carry you to the stars and back. You dream of the stupid things he might whisper in your ear, the bad jokes and corny one-liners. You dream of telling him, _you don’t need to say that. You’ve already got me. I’m yours._ You dream of the references he might make, the babbling nonsense you don’t understand because your taste in films is vastly superior to his.

You dream of making love to him, of holding him close and riding the ecstasy you are sure only he can give you.

Once, Dirk came and sat with you at lunch, blond hair a mess and looking miserable as sin. You couldn’t be sure, but you thought you saw a black eye behind those ridiculous shades of his. You asked him what was wrong, and he said, ‘girls.’

You told him, ‘I can’t really say I know the feeling. But I understand.’

So he said, ‘asterisk boys,’ and you punched him in the arm.

But the thing is, even though you don’t really sympathise with his problems with Jane, because those problems are mostly of his own making, and if he just _manned up_ for once in his miserable existence, he could have it very good indeed, you understand the sentiment behind the word. _Relationships_ , he means. _Feelings_. _People_. You understand the problem of people better than anyone.

The problem is; people are assholes. Every last one. Even you. Especially you. Even Jade, all sugar-smile and Squiddle cuddles, she’s an asshole. She’s a grade-B asshole at best, but she is one. She niggles. She’s terrible for it; she gets under your skin and bares you to her excruciatingly sharp gaze. (Aided, of course, by her inch-thick specs. But you don’t talk about that.) She peels you open and watches you squirm and dissects you like an insect. You are the frog at her workbench, and you can’t even ribbit for help.

She knows about John. She knows about how you feel about him, the things you might like to do to him. She knows about things you have never even told the three-hundred-and-forty-seven followers on your blog. She knows about your chickened-out attempts at getting off, and the daydreams about being able to kiss him.

She even knows that you’ve been hounding Equius about getting that sweatband contraption of his finished, just so you can try something. Anything.

‘You don’t understand sexual frustration,’ you tell her one day, as you huddle together in the library just to get away from the clutter in the cafeteria. You have a migraine from all the shouting, and she is petting your hair. ‘You don’t understand how hard it is.’

There’s a smile on her mouth, you know, and you flick her ankle.

She sighs, and works on untangling some of your curls.

‘I don’t get it,’ she admits, which you knew anyway, ‘but I understand.’

There’s a lot of that going around these days.

‘I wish there was something I could do. Some way to make it so that you could at least, you know, do it. The thing.’

‘Masturbate,’ you say, ‘it’s not a hard word. You won’t choke on it.’

‘I might,’ she teases, ‘it’s such a _dirty_ word.’

You snort, and wince as it sends pain rocketing into your eyeball. She is the dirtiest of the lot of you know, and you damn well know it. Dave calls her a freak; it took you three months to work out why, and you wish you never did.

Everyone in this fucking school has had sex apart from you.

And maybe Equius, you don’t really ask about his relationships to be sure. But it wouldn’t surprise you. Dude was ripped.

‘Have you told John?’ Jade asks, and her fingers rub behind your ears, ‘how you feel, I mean?’

‘No,’ you tell her. ‘Of course not. I’m ginger, not stupid.’

She laughs and taps her fingers.

‘I think you should tell him. He deserves to know.’

‘He also deserves to be happy. I can’t make him happy. I can’t make _myself_ happy.’

She doesn’t know what to say to that, changing the subject to the homework set for them in their physical education classes. Well, you call them physical education, but really it’s just an excuse for the school to put you in stupid-looking shorts and polo shirts and wristbands and make you look like fools to practice using your powers.

(You admit to staring at John’s arse only under duress and that negates the confession entirely because of course you tell your captors what they want to hear. You learnt about that in what amassed to a Politics class.)

You try to control your powers, honestly you do, but there’s only so much you can do, and when breathing in the cold runs the risk of killing someone, that’s kind of an indicator that something is very seriously wrong with you and everything you choose to be.

John doesn’t seem to be bothered by the cold; either he doesn’t notice it, or he’s just really good at getting on with things. You envy him, bundled into your sweaters and coat and hat and scarf and gloves and snow boots and thermal underwear as you are. You can barely move for the cold, but he’s wearing a coat and a hat and that’s it.

Bastard, you think, and try to inch closer to the heated air he’s got circulating around him. Selfish, selfish bastard with a comely flush on his face, and his lips are as chapped as yours and oh, you want to kiss him. You want to leech his warmth and feel him shiver under the chill in your fingers.

But alas, you are only a short ginger with an overbite, and some things are never meant to be.


End file.
